Collaboration, Web 2.0: Past as Prologue

Post by Alan S. Cohen, Vice President, Enterprise & Mid-Market Solutions “Whereof what’s past is prologue; what to come, In yours and my discharge.” – Shakespeare, The TempestIn preparing for our Collaboration launch today, I reflected upon Cisco’s evolution in this market, from our first VoIP gateways in the 90s, our leadership of IP Telephony gained at the beginning of the decade, and our leadership in Unified Communications over the past few years. At each juncture, we succeeded by anticipating the market transition underway while building upon our prior market leadership. Today marks another transition, the fusion of the UC and Collaboration markets, accelerated by the twin business drivers of globalisation and virtualization.About 6 months ago at VoiceCon, we initiated our vision of Collaboration that brings together UC, Web 2.0 applications and Video, delivered either on the Enterprise Network or through the cloud, such as the Webex Mediatone network. Our vision reaches beyond intra-company to cross-company collaboration, enabled by the rich horizontal services of network such as security, policy, mobility and identity, making the collaboration tools and applications transparent to the end user despite the delivery model. And it would be characterized by compelling two-way video communications that transcend time, distance, and cultural issues. Nobel Laureate Al Gore and Cisco CEO John Chambers Host Virtual Discussion on Climate Change and Technology InnovationClick here to view my conversation last March with Fritz Nelson of CMP discussing this market transition.

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